Entries in LG V30
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LG is joining the bandwagon of putting artificial intelligence tech into its smartphone’s camera. The South Korean company said they will be showing off “the first of a suite of AI technologies into a new version of the V30 at the upcoming Mobile World Congress. This was leaked earlier in Korea with reports that a phone called the V30s will be coming to MWC and will have AI-powered camera features.

This Vision AI tech, as LG calls it, will be initially focused on image recognition and will provide auto image analysis to recommend shooting modes instantly as well as help recognize objects and offer shopping suggestions (similar to Google Lens on the Pixel devices). The technology will also supposedly be used to offer better low-light performance.

In its home country, LG started the public beta test of the Android 8.0 Oreo for the V30 a month ago. Now, it looks like the final build is ready for primetime, as LG just announced. For those in South Korea that haven’t gotten the update yet, LG says you can download LG Bridge from the company’s site and sideload the update from there. As for when the update is coming to other countries, there isn’t an official announcement when that is happening just yet. There isn’t any official word also if Project Treble also didn’t make the cut just like with the public beta version.

Wanting to announce a product on their terms, LG did a bit of “creative subterfuge” as The Vergedescribes it by tinkering around with the phone’s aperture. The company deliberately misrepresented the aperture value of f/1.6 as f/1.7 to throw off any industrial espionage and particularly nosy fans who want to know the latest specs ahead of the release. This understandably had the people who got pre-release review units question whether the phone had an f/1.6 aperture value. LG after all did announce the feature a few weeks before the device was launched at IFA 2017. But the move was seen as LG taking control of sharing its own news instead of leaks beating them to the punch.

The company does want to reassure users that the V30 retail units will ship with an f/1.6 aperture. In a statement they say, “Before unveiling a new product, LG Electronics safeguards confidential and proprietary device information by masking the true values of important product specifications. Some preproduction preview sample devices recently distributed featured non-final software, which maintained masked information with regard to aperture. The LG V30 features an F1.6 aperture camera and glass lens, an industry leading innovation.”